Health

But not totally Healthy. This article exams the results of a scientific study by an interdependent source (Not funded by e-cig companies of cigarette companies) and shows that E-cigs are definitely safer that regular cigarettes… but not safer than not doing either.

I was just on thevapebabe.com‘s site and watched, we more like listened to, the speech by Bill Godshall, founder and Director of Smoke-Free Pennsylvania.

The comment she made about it was:

People like this make me smile! We all have to do our part to protect what is rightfully ours as a safer alternative to analog cigarettes!!!

So, naturally I was curious. And I listened to him. This guy is dead on. He has his facts, he knows the regulations. He was very passionate about this subject he knows so much about, harm reduction from tobacco cigarettes. He let the panel ask questions and he responded with facts, dates, studies… everything but the kitchen sink. I loved it as well. So much so that I’m reposting the video also so even more people can witness… Bill Godshall.

I came across an article called “The Deadly Crusade Against E-cigarettes” by Dr. Gilbert Ross, M.D. is executive and medical director of the American Council on Science and Health. In his article he actually takes a long view of the harmful effects of cigarettes on this Century. He calls it the “most important public health problem in the world”.

Experts predict the global death toll of cigarettes will approach a billion lives lost this century. That millions of people in Korea, and hundreds of millions of people around the world, are addicted to cigarettes should be considered the worst global catastrophe in human history.

The long view really puts the damage and death cigarettes bring to humanity in perspective. It’s hard to look at this data and find any reason we shouldn’t be looking for answers, real solutions, to this global epidemic. We know that society as a whole know cigarettes as harmful and dangerous. The government knows they are harmful as well. There are agencies that have been formed specifically for this purpose. They have even endorsed cessation products. But, lets look at how well they fair.

Among America’s 46 million smokers, well over half say they want to quit, and over one-third attempt to do so each year — but less than one-tenth succeed!
Yet, in a triumph of hypocrisy over science, the powers-that-be keep touting ineffective cessation products that fail 90 percent of the time.

What bothers me the most is not the results, but the government’s response to the results.

Despite those sorry statistics, those in charge at numerous government agencies and NGOs chant in unison, “Stick with the approved cessation methods.” This advice can be translated to “Quit, or die.”

E-cigarettes has an unconfirmed success rate of 33% to 40%, depending on who you ask. There are literally millions of e-cig users in America right now, and that number keeps growing. Annually, e-cigs sales about $300 million dollars among 2.5 million users according to data from Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. Herzog projects this number will climb to $1 billion dollars in a few years.

Next week these bureaucrats will be gathering at a conclave in Seoul for the possible revision of an international tobacco treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), where they’ll be taking up e-cigarettes and perhaps even calling for a ban.

This is where I get more confused. Why jump to ban e-cigs? Now, I’m an e-cig user, so maybe my opinion is bias. So, stepping back, if the cessation devices are not really working as they intended, but e-cigs have a higher success results, why not investigate them further? I believe this would get the anti-tobacco legislators excited about a product they can use against big tobacco. I thought their goal was to get people off of cigarettes. I can see why people will scream “foul”, because it makes no sense. And, what do they believe will happen if they succeed in banning e-cigs?

The irrationality of these “public health” arguments puts into stark relief the blind-spot of the prohibitionist zealots: They fail to acknowledge the inconvenient fact that the millions of smokers in Europe, Asia and America – not to mention the billion or so worldwide – are not going to suddenly accept being regulated off their nicotine. The millions who have succeeded in quitting thanks to e-cigarettes and reduced risk tobacco products will not kick their habit and become nicotine-abstinent if these products are prohibited. No — they will revert to the widely available, deadliest source: cigarettes.

This is so true, I would indeed go back to cigarettes. I think about cigarettes even now, the smell… doesn’t smell bad. But, the craving is gone. With my e-cigs, I don’t have that.. “Must have one” that I use too for cigarettes and that’s enough for me to be smoke free for a year now.

Points that make a great electronic cigarette experience

It has been 15 weeks since I left regular cigarettes behind and began my journey down the long winding path of electronic cigarettes. With the help of other review websites, blogs and the electronic cigarette forum I have found my feet in my current awareness. I know what I know and I’m eager to plod into the darkness of my unawareness.

I’ve found several answers to my first questions, and found rivers of other questions that keep broadening out like a mighty river. I constantly keep an eye out for scientist and doctors to offer more information about electronic cigarettes, but they are either still testing or aren’t looking at all. So those questions I will leave in the hands of the experts.

So, I delve into one question:

What makes a great electronic cigarette experience for me?

The answer is broken into four parts: Pull, Throat hit, flavor and Vapor. A bit over simplified, I know, but at its heart these four little factors keep me vaping. The second tier of concerns is important as well, but not as much as the first tier for me. The second tier is: battery use time before needing to recharge, time between refilling/replacing cartridge/cartomizer, and portability/ease of recharge. Below this point are issues that are not as important if a product ace all the first tiers. The third tier of concern is: Price per puff ratio, style/look of the e-cig and bulk/size of e-cig.

Tier 1

Pull:

Pull is what I call the resistance the e-cig gives when you draw on it. Since moving away from reg cigs, my focus is on what I “remember” a regular pull is. To light of a pull, and it feels like your pulling on a straw that is cracked on the side. To tight and it feels like an ice-cube is stuck on in straw. Each battery/cartomizer combo offers different ways to vent air and the design is usually shared among the battery types/threads. The real pull is determined by the design of the batteries and cartomizers and the flow of air through them. At the same time, I have seen similarly manufactured thread sizes give different results. I began to rely on manufactures to deliver consistent results for my vaping needs. The battery mAhs also give an insight into the pull. I’m not an engineer, I’m more of a programmer, but from my readings and understandings, the volts of batteries play a reason in how quickly the battery builds up the atomizer on each draw to vaporize the e-liquid. If the mAh is delivered in a consistent fashion, then the atomizer should be able to offer a constant steady flow of atomized e-liquid. This helps decide if on every pull you get the same vaping experience, or if you have to wait till the cartomizer gets to a “certain level” of voltage before it begins to deliver a consistent pull-per-flavor ratio. Some cartomizer-to-battery ratios need a “build up puff time” before it begins to give the flavor and vapor I have come to expect from it.

Throat hit:

Throat hit is the agitation in the back of the throat smokers are used to from regular cigarettes. The “kick” a smoker gets when they pull in a mouth full of smoke, then inhales it all in is the throat hit. The throat hit that almost brings a smoker to point of coughing is what each smoker over comes in time and is a part of a smokers experience. The electronic cigarette can simulate this just like a cigarette and most e-cig users believe it’s associated with the amount of nicotine in each cartridge/cartomizer. In most cases this is true. But, there are some cases that this is just not the case. Propylene Glycol e-liquids tend to have a strong throat hit and fewer vapors, where as Vegetable glycerin e-liquids have less throat hit and more vapor. I tested this with Johnson’s Creeks smoke juice Tennessee Cured, which they have in a Propylene Glycol mix and a pure Vegetable Glycerin e-liquid in 18 mg (1.8%) nicotine. The Red Oak version, which uses Vegetable Glycerin, had more vapor but less throat hit and the original version had more throat hit but less vapor. Throat hit also plays a role in how the flavor is received. The e-liquids with no throat hit has a different “taste” as opposed to the version with more throat hit. I have purchased zero nicotine e-liquids of my favorite flavors and I can tell it’s the same flavor, but it still “tastes” different. The kick from the throat hit becomes a part of it’s flavor. This is why throat hit is a tier one concern for me.

Flavor:

Flavor is everything to me now. In my regular cigarette days, when I only had the different flavors of tobacco and the few selections of menthol to choose from, I did a bit of searching. When I was 21 and decided I was going to smoke, I started with Marlboro regulars, king size. I was curious, so I began buying different packs from other manufactures: Were they any different? Isn’t tobacco, tobacco? These are the questions I wanted to answer for myself. Was I smoke the best available? So, I went through every brand I found. From Lucky Strike and unfiltered Camel to Capri, Salem, Winston and Dunhill I kept trying them. All of the brands such as Newport and each variety of Camel gave way till I finally settled on Benson and Hedges Menthol Light as my brand for the last 15 years of my smoking journey. Now that I am not limited to tobacco or menthol flavors, I can really explore this wide open world of flavors. I stumbled upon Johnson Creeks Summer Peach and fell in love. I never thought I would leave its side as I tested and discarded other flavors. I was able to see the uniqueness and passion of the other flavors, but Summer Peach had my heart. Until that day I stumbled into V2 Cigs Coffee flavors arms and realized… I had not known love, true love, until that moment! Of V2Cig coffee flavor, how do I love thee. We danced and… wait, I digress. That one simple coffee flavor showed me there are still yet mountains to climb. Still many more flavors that are fascinating, complex and alluring. Halo G6 has a host of them, just waiting for me to further explore them. I am nurturing Midnight Apple now, and it’s just amazing. Dark husky scents play upon my palette with the hint of sweet apples lightly dancing in the background. You can really taste the passion each inventor put into these flavors. Oh, and Vapor 4 life has a host of flavors I look forward to devouring. I can go on and on with this topic, so I better move on.

Vapor:

Vapor plays a major role in my e-cig experience and it can be over-looked if I’m not careful. The mouth-full of vapor that is released signifies to me the end of a process. That the puff has been completed and a step finalized in my e-cig vaping. It is mentally satisfying and emotionally fulfilling. The closing of a chapter as it was, all bundled up in a cloud of vapor. This is what the part of vapor plays: the conclusion to the act and it soothes the completionist in me.

There you have it, my top-tier in what makes my electronic cigarette experience complete. I’ll put together another post on the next 2 tiers in another post.

The Washington Post and USA Today posted articles on a 5 year study performed by Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Global Tobacco Control in Boston. The lead author Hillel Alpert said “Even though other well-controlled studies have shown that nicotine replacement therapy can be effective, our study looked at real-world use over the long-term… And in the real world, cigarettes are simply a very powerful addiction. And NRT is apparently not an effective replacement for that addiction.”

The study was performed on 787 adult smokers in Massachusetts who had recently quit smoking. They were interviewed 3 times at 2 year intervals. They smokers ranged from light smokers to heavy smokers. Based on the tests, those who used the nicotine replacement therapy relapsed back to smoking just as much as those who quit without them.

Here is a news article from Daily Comet that asks the question “Do Electronic Cigarettes work?” and they dot he leg work and what dot hey find? Here is a small excerpt:

They’re converts. And they’re happy about dropping a long engrained and cancer-causing, habit. But they’re unhappy about a proposed city ordinance, which would not allow them to ” vap” in public places.

Here is an excerpt form an article I found at Cosmos Magazine from 2008 about why nicotine is bad for people, especially with Heart Disease.

WHY NICOTINE IS BAD FOR YOU

• Nicotine is not carcinogenic, but it is highly addictive; after inhalation of smoke, nicotine reaches the brain within 20 seconds and its effects are felt within a minute.

• Nicotine is five to ten times more potent than cocaine or morphine in producing behavioral and psychological effects associated with addiction, including feelings of pleasure, according to a report produced by the U.K.’s Royal College of Physicians in 2007.

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